Friday, January 20, 2012

I Need New Shoes

I’m back at home in Cape Verde after a short
vacation in Dakar. The trip was excellent, but the fallout was considerable. My
legs feel like I swam home from Senegal,
my bank account is looking real bad, and my liver has gone on strike in
the hopes of renegotiating its labor contract. In short, we did it big last
weekend.

After six months in my new home, I headed to the
mainland to participate in W.A.I.S.T.—the West African Invitational Softball
Tournament. All I have to say is that if baseball was more like W.A.I.S.T.,
then I would play and watch it a whole lot more. Every January, hundreds of
Peace Corps Volunteer from across west Africa converge on the Senegalese
capital for a weekend of mostly-unproductive camaraderie. The weekend follows
directly on the heels of several constructive events, including the WID/GAD* conference and the All-Volunteer Conference, where folks get a chance to share
ideas about their actual work. In stark contrast, W.A.I.S.T. is more like
homecoming meets The Wellington Sevens. I’d like to tell
you all about it, but what happens in Dakar stays in Dakar. Instead, I’ll give
you just a little taste. So, with no further ado, I present...

Ten Things I’ll Never Forget About W.A.I.S.T.

Partying so hard that even the kitten was passed out on the couch
for most of the following day;

Pondering the idea of replacing the “Classic 1 to 10 Scale” with the
“Binary System” for rating the attractiveness of women... kinda like red light
/ green light, or taking a class Pass/Fail;

Seeing a softball team plug their defensive gap in the short-stop
hole with an inflatable killer whale;

Charging the mound to tackle (and tickle) the pitcher from Team Far
East after he beaned our batter;

Committing hara-kiri after that same team pounded us for three
innings;

Replacing the third “s” in “sh*t, shower, shave” with “shawarma”;

Kraus;

The taste of a medium rare steak smothered in green peppercorn sauce (good);

The taste of homemade moonshine
imported from Korea (bad)

Now, I admit that this post has been a bit less
wholesome than the others on this blog, and I wouldn’t want you to walk away
with a bad impression of W.A.I.S.T. Truthfully, despite the debauchery, I can
look back on the weekend and appreciate some valuable takeaways. For example, the
opportunity to meet over one hundred volunteers from across the region was
golden for me. Being stationed in Cape Verde, I am constantly reminded how
different my life is from the “typical” Peace Corps experience (if there is
one). It was nice to actually compare notes with Volunteers serving on the
mainland, mostly in rural sites throughout Senegal, Guinea, The Gambia, and
Mali. Not surprisingly, I found that their experiences were very different—the
biggest shock for me was to realize just how damn many of them there are! We
have less than 50 volunteers in Cape Verde, plus we are spread out across several islands so we are never in the same place at the same time. At times it felt like there
were that many volunteers crashing at the Regional Transit House in Dakar on
any given night.

By far, the highlight of the weekend for me was
dancing. Actually, I’m bumping Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall album at 11:00am as I write this, so you know what I’m
about. It was just one of those times when you’re out there for 4-5 hours
straight and every song that comes on just happens to be your jammy jam... even
when you actually can’t stand it. It wasn’t until the next day when I went to get dressed and observed that my shoes were dirtier than Sarah Silverman's mouth, that I realized just how "active” I had been on the dance floor
for the last two nights.

Believe it or not, Team Cape Verde did not make
it to the semi-finals of the tournament, so we had Monday off to chill out. My
original plan had been to use that day to explore the city a little bit, but I
ended up exploring the couch at the Transit House. I can’t remember the last
time I travelled to a new country or city and saw so little of it. I’m not
proud of how little I integrated into Senegalese society during my four day stay—but
I’m also not ashamed. Everyday for me in Cape Verde is a struggle to integrate,
and I just needed a vacation.

Since my plane did not leave until Tuesday
afternoon, I got to spend my last morning walking the streets of downtown
Dakar. It reminded me how much I enjoyed riding solo during my travels leading
up to entering the Peace Corps. More than anything, those few hours made me
want to come back to Senegal again—maybe for W.A.I.S.T., or maybe for no good
reason at all. At least I know I have a bucket of new friends in west Africa,
and at least a few mud huts that would welcome me. I’ll make it happen...
inshallah.

1 comment:

I'm so glad you enjoyed WAIST! It was great to meet you and to hear how different your experiences are. Also good to know my slip and slide efforts were not umm wasted lol :) Hopefully you stop back over before I finish, sadly that was my last WAIST...or was it?